Sound Familiar?

by Jon DeRosa |
October 19, 2010 10:47 am

After splitting the first two games of the 1998 ALCS, Andy Pettitte took the mound looking to give the Yankees an important edge, but lost Game 3 and the Yankees’ World Series outlook darkened. The Yankees’ fourth starter took the mound amid uncertainty and pitched one of the best games of his career.

I would love to see Orlando Hernandez come running out of the bullpen, tonight, but he’s probably not going to. The Yankees need AJ Burnett to summon his inner-Duque tonight. And though I’m sure you’re sick to death of reading about Cliff Lee, check out the first nine games (eight starts, one relief appearance) of Duque’s postseason career versus the first eight of Cliff Lee’s.

You’re looking at two of the best postseason stretches in history, and apart from the walks (which is more about style than effectiveness in this case), they’re almost identical. El Duque eventually faltered, hopefully Cliff Lee never does. That is, as long as his next postseason appearance comes in a Yankee uniform. If he’s got one more for the Rangers, I hope it’s a stinker.

reposting from earlier thread, I always find the new threads cause the older to die, like bats vs Mo.

17. Mattpat11
October 19th, 2010 at 11:24 am[13] The free agent pitching class after Lee is horrific. Its Lee or bust

18. Horace Clarke Era

[17] Actually, yeah, you’re right Mattpat. Lee or trade?
Anyone else find it so weird to watch him and curse and also say ‘maybe he’s ours soon?’ He’s 32, has back issues, and HAS to get paid well in excess of, er, AJ. Oh, and he’s also unholy good.
I do remember saying (may have said it here, but maybe not) that Texas might well have bought themselves a WS berth when they won out for him. I based it in part on their injuries … and that was before Hamilton missed the last 2-3 weeks. Flipside, had Mariners taken Montero instead of Smoaky, we might be laughing now.

El Duque was at the game last night and got a huge ovation when they put him up on the big screen. Maybe the Yankees can add him to the roster for tonight.

[5] As it turns out, the Mariners did give Cashman a chance to add Nova or Nunez to the deal, but he passed. The wisdom of that move will depend on how Montero develops, but Cashman could have turned down a deal for the 2010 World Series. We'll see.

The bottom line for me is the Yankees are in a tough position because of how poorly the rotation was constructed. Not having Sabathia go on three days rest in 1,4,7 and Andy in games 2 and 6 on full rest was just an awful decision, and now the Yankees are paying the price. In order to win the series, the Yankees now need to rely on the erratic AJ and an inconsistent Hughes. If both don't pitch well, the only option remaining is beat Cliff Lee.

[7] The strategy I suggested at my blog before the series was C.C./Andy/AJ/C.C./Hughes/Andy/C.C.

Here was my logic:

1) Rangers hit better against righties, esp. hard throwing ones, so best to go with five games of C.C. and Andy. With two starts in 20+ days before game 4, C.C. would be well rested for two starts on three days. Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte would have two starts on full rest. Also, using them as indicated above would give you one C.C. matchup against Hunter and two Andy starts against Lewis, all of which would have heavily favored the Yankees.

2) AJ is either awful or very good. Pairing Burnett against Lee would have either leveraged AJ’s potential to be dominant, or mitigated his propensity for being awful. Instead of "wasting" Andy against Lee, I would have preferred to go with AJ in that game.

3) Hughes had three starts will long rest and was awful in all them. In game 2, he would have a week layoff, but if they went in game 5, he could have thrown an inning in game 1 or two. The two times he went an inning in between starts, he threw the ball well. What's more, pitching him once would cut down on his innings, which presumably is still important.

[10] The three starts to which I was referring were in the regular season (8.04 ERA and 1.101 OPS against in three starts with greater than six days rest). He did pitch well on 6 days rest in the ALDS, but he supposedly threw extra on the side because his last outing was a relief appearance. Regardless, his ALDS success was on longer rest.

[8] I would've signed up for that. The decision to not throw CC 3 times was the critical problem, and to me quite bizarre. I just didn't feel like they had any chance without the big man going 3 times. He's generally done fine on short(er) rest, while it was pretty predictable he would be bad with the long layoff coming into game 1. I wanted AJ against Lee just so we could punt that game, but have been too embarrassed to say so - so unsporting i suppose.